Waiting for Your Love (Echoes of the Heart) Page 9

  “If you have to study for exams,” Rick said, the shorter, rounder of the two men, “do it here.”

  “During Friday-night rush?” Law maneuvered a fresh keg of Guinness under the dark oak counter.

  Rick pulled glasses from the compact dishwasher and slid them into their overhead runners. “It’ll be a slow night.”

  “Then cover the shift yourself.”

  “It’s not gonna be that slow.”

  “No kidding.”

  “So don’t bail on me.” Rick jammed his hands to his waist, a midlife paunch spilling over his jeans’ belted waist.

  “It’s the only time I’ve asked off in two weeks.”

  “Hell, I know you got other priorities. I’m just in a bind.”

  “And I sympathize.” The rangy bartender sounded more like a commiserating friend than a pressured employee. He wiped down the counter with a soft cloth, his attention stalling on Mike before returning to his boss. “Things have been in a bind since the recession nearly dragged you under. But you and Kristie kept the place open. Business is growing. Train another second-shift bar back.”

  “Next week, I promise.” Rick nailed Mike’s eavesdropping with a WTF stare. “In the meantime, Friday-night baseball will be on the flat screens. We’ll have a packed crowd from six till last call. You’ll make a week’s worth of tips in one easy shot.”

  Law shook his head. “I’m pulling all-nighters straight through the weekend.”

  “I’ve got nothing going on until early next week,” Mike said.

  He eased back in his stool, as stunned by the offer he’d blurted out as the other two seemed to be.

  Needing to clear his head, he’d hit town early with a few necessities loaded in his Jeep and a powerful hankering to drift for several days. A new contract was on the horizon. It would be a much-needed distraction from the business he’d left behind in Atlanta. And from the other realities of his life that clung like a second skin no matter how far or how fast he moved. Especially this time of year.

  Tending bar for these guys would kiss off some of the free time he’d carved out. But he liked to get the lay of the land when he rolled into a new place. Ease into the flow of things. And McC’s was a local hangout, according to the guy Mike was subleasing his furnished apartment from—and the kid behind the gas station register, and the elderly checkout clerk at Sweetie’s Fairway, a cross between a mom-and-pop general store and a full-service butcher shop.

  “If you need someone to fill in for a day or two,” he reasoned, “I could—”

  “Don’t reckon we’ve met,” Rick interrupted.

  “Mike Taylor.” He held out his hand. “I’m new in town.”

  Rick eyed Mike’s worn Stetson and wrinkled clothes.

  The bartender shook Mike’s hand.

  “Law Beaumont,” he said. “You have any experience tending bar?”

  “Worked my way around the country and back a few times doing it. Paying the bills. Meeting interesting people. I’ve got something steady lined up starting next week. But I could give you a few nights if you need a stand-in for Flora or whatever her name is—the one with the cat and the Harley.”

  “Paisley.” Rick crossed his arms over a belly that could have seemed jolly on a less cranky man. “My wife’s niece. She’s flighty, but she’s the second-best bartender in the county.”

  “Was the second-best,” Law reminded him.

  “That would make you number one?” Mike nodded at the bartender and pushed the brim of his hat higher. “And me nobody from nowhere. I get it.”

  “You’re a drifter.” Rick glanced through the bar’s open-paned windows at Mike’s mud-encrusted Jeep. “Just waltzed into town. Already nosing into people’s business. Probably blow right back out whenever the mood strikes you.”

  “Probably.” It had been close to a decade since Mike had been a sticking-around kind of guy.

  Law went from studying him to grabbing more of the glasses sitting in the dishwasher. He wiped them and hung them overhead with the rest. “I don’t expect his mood will change before tomorrow night.”

  “So I should sign him right up?” Rick asked. “To take care of my best customers during my busiest rush?”

  Mike recognized the distrust, the cynicism. And he’d typically steer clear of the vibe.

  But there was something about the place, the town itself. He’d arrived only last night, but he’d spent the morning walking picturesque streets warmed by a sluggishly rising sun. Everywhere he’d turned people and homes and small businesses had invited him closer with smiles and waves and introductions. Chandlerville seemed spun from the kind of charm you wanted to capture in a postcard image, to keep in a memory box instead of mailing. He couldn’t help but want to burrow in for a spell.

  “I’ll be out of your hair in a couple of days,” he said. “I don’t mind pitching in.”

  “Why?” Less confrontational, Rick seemed to be debating whether Mike was just plain nuts.

  “I like helping where I can.” Wasn’t making a difference what taking this break was about? Maybe this one more than all the rest? “I like places where good people do the best they can for each other. Being part of something like that for a couple of nights wouldn’t be a hardship.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would be.” Law gave Mike a more thorough once-over. “I could work with Cowboy here tonight. See how he fits in with the staff.”

  Rick threw his hands in the air.

  “What the hell.” He headed out from behind the bar and stalked past Mike. “Show Law what you’re worth, before the afternoon rush starts. If you know one end of a mixed drink from another, you’re on tonight while he’s around to pick up after you. Handle the happy hour and dinner food orders folks make at the bar, and we’ll talk about tomorrow.”

  Rick stalled out a few feet away.

  “And . . . thank you, I guess.” He dug his hands into his jeans’ pockets. “I’ll go find the paperwork you gotta fill out. Even if we all end up regretting this by sundown, Kristie will have my ass come payroll if I don’t make it official.”

  The man headed down the same strip of a hallway that led to the kitchen and wherever McC’s stored its supplies.

  “Kristie?” Mike asked Law.

  “His wife. Rick’s CPA. His conscience. He’ll tell ya she’s the real reason he kept this place going a few years back when businesses all over were tanking. The woman’s a genius at investments and taxes, strangling the last gasp of oxygen from every dime.”

  Mike joined him on the other side of the bar. “You know them pretty well?”

  “They’ve been good to me since I moved to town.”

  Mike took the absence of details in stride. Lots of people kept the nuts and bolts of their lives close, for a lot of reasons they didn’t discuss. “So folks around here don’t automatically distrust every newcomer on sight?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Law tossed him an apron identical to the one wrapped around his hips. “But helping out a neighbor who’s got nowhere else to turn should earn you some cred.”

  “It’s really no big deal.” Mike relaxed deeper into the right-place, right-time moment. “Where do we start?”

  Law waved a hand at the bar’s shelves and cabinets, the bottles and glasses and equipment and other flotsam. “Make me a seven and seven. A lemon drop. A frozen margarita. A manhattan. Then we’ll move on to the complicated stuff.”

  “After you taste what I mix?”

  “I’m a recovering alcoholic,” the guy said with the same emphasis Mike would have given to announcing that he was left-handed. “But I’ll know you’ve got game when you don’t have to cheat with a mixology app on your phone. Ready to rumble, Cowboy?”

  Mike lifted his hat, smoothed back his hair, and resettled his Stetson. Nuts or not, this was going to be fun. He reached for a highball and twirled the glass in his hand.

  “Guess we’re about to find out.”

  “Benjie’s not seriously here,” Nicole said to
Bethany Darling, taking the words right out of Bethany’s mouth.

  She’d been thinking it ever since her louse of an ex had slinked back into town the end of May, and kept popping up on her radar with disturbing regularity.

  “Maybe he just wants a beer?” Bethany begged the universe at large.

  “Honey.” Nic crossed her supermodel-long legs. She was perched on the stool to Bethany’s left. “Richie Rich wouldn’t be slumming in a place like this for anyone else but you. I’m sure Mummy’s wondering why he’s not holding court with her at their family table at the country club. You gotta nip this one in the bud.”

  “Put that dirty dog down,” Clair insisted from Bethany’s right, really needing a mute button. “He’s been panting after you for too long. You’ve ignored him. Your family’s ignored him. Even we’ve ignored how he did you wrong, because it’s what you wanted. If the guy had a clue to catch, he would have by now.”

  Bethany snuck a glance around at the half dozen or more people casually listening in. Most of them were dressed in jeans and Braves shirts, a lot of the guys and more than a few of the women wore team ball caps. As she caught their attention, several smiled. Some in support. Others in commiseration.

  It was nearly eight o’clock. McC’s Thursday-night happy hour had been a crazy swarm of friends and neighbors clustering around nearby tables. Now the dining room that doglegged off to the right brimmed with patrons, too. Standing room at the bar was maxed out, with more regulars pouring in by the minute—most recently, Benjie Carrington.

  Thankfully, he’d stopped to talk with an elderly couple sipping wine and waiting near the hostess stand.

  “It’s time to be brutal.” Clair’s sage wisdom came with a side hug.

  Bethany shrugged off her bestie. “We don’t all do brutal as effortlessly as you do. You have a revolving door of hotties—including one of my brothers—perfectly happy to be loved and left anytime you crook your finger at them.”

  Nic, not the hugging type, nudged Bethany with a sharp elbow. “Smack him across the nose with a rolled newspaper. Can you think of a better place to finally be done with the jerk?”

  “So, basically, make a spectacle of myself?” Bethany toasted the overfull room with her nearly empty glass of wine. “I don’t think so.”

  Her days of embarrassing herself over guys were behind her. She’d lost it after she’d dumped Benjie the end of their senior year of high school. Then she’d compounded her misery by attaching herself to a steady stream of emotionally unavailable men—so sure with each new love that she’d finally found the one who’d be everything her heart desired. Now her heart was firmly focused on more important things. Permanent things, like friends and family and the community she’d come back to.

  “To hell with anything Benjie or any man wants from me,” she told her friends and herself.

  “Like that guy has ever cared about what you want,” Clair warned. “In his warped view of reality, you two are back to ground zero.”

  “While the whole town watches the show?”

  “You’re a Dixon, honey.” Nic shook her head. “Your family should have its own Facebook page the way people keep track of your comings and goings. Everyone’s weighing in on him panting after you again.”

  “He’s kinda pitiful these days,” Clair said. “Folks are shunning him for the lying, cheating dog he was to you. Meanwhile he’s running his sainted daddy’s dry cleaning business into the ground.”

  Bethany winced. “His father died, C.”

  “Ralph Carrington was a crank,” Nic reminded her, “and he’s been gone for two years.”

  “And Benny had no problem,” Clair added, “leaving his mom to sink or swim handling things on her own—until he skidded out of art school, with no one interested in commissioning or showing his no-good sculpture.”

  Bethany shrugged.

  “His family’s money could have bought him some kind of apprenticeship in New York.” She’d refused to follow Benjie to Manhattan after high school. It had meant giving up her scholarship, but it wasn’t like she’d been able to paint anymore anyway. “It was his father’s donation that finally got him a spot in art school.”

  “Your talent’s the main reason Benjie got into Pratt, and you know it.” Clair tossed her long blonde hair over the nearly bare shoulder of her micro-mini sundress. “Make this a smackdown to remember.”

  Nic wiggled her smartphone in Bethany’s face. She was constantly tweeting, sharing, tumbling, gramming, or whatever else she did with her legion of virtual playmates.

  “You’ll be trending on social media by midnight,” she promised.

  “My dream come true.”

  “Hashtag, DirtyDogGetsHis.”

  “Hashtag, HellNo.” Bethany yanked the phone away and smacked it to the bar.

  Clair pouted. “The guy deserves it.”

  “My family doesn’t.”

  Bethany had put them through enough. Her dreams of being a painter dashed, she’d run off to Atlanta after aging out of foster care. She’d no longer trusted anyone or anything she knew. Wanting a totally new life, she’d been desperate to start over again. And again. And then again.

  She’d wised up a year ago, making her way back to Chandlerville with a half a dozen failed fresh starts in her rearview mirror. But even then she’d kept her distance from her foster family, mortified by the way she’d cut them out of her life. She’d been unsure of her welcome no matter how many ways her parents and older siblings had tried to reach out to her, or how hurt they must have been at her reticence.

  Now, settling back into the family was the only dream she was chasing—even if the Dixon clan still loved all-in, like a tidal wave of unconditional acceptance that left her close to sobbing in gratitude one minute and nearly breaking out in hives the next.

  “I don’t want a fight,” she told her friends.

  Clair’s side-glance labeled Bethany a liar.

  “He’ll get the idea,” Bethany insisted, “if I keep ignoring him.”

  “Disappearing, you mean,” Nic corrected. “While you use steering clear of Benjie as your excuse.”

  “I’m doing no such thing.”

  Bethany had reconnected only this past January with the people she should have trusted from the start. Her foster family had a wedding and Marsha and Joe’s thirty-fifth anniversary on the horizon. And Bethany was going to be there for every moment of it. The planning and celebration. Helping any way she could. Soaking up how lucky she was to have a place in their crazy, zany world.

  “I don’t care what Benjie does anymore.” So what if his unwanted advances were jumping up and down on her last nerve? “I told him to get lost last week when he showed up drunk on Dru and Brad’s doorstep. I’ll tell him again if he really comes all the way over here. Pitching a public fit will only cause more gossip and get my family involved. My brothers have been chomping at the bit all summer to measure out some Southern justice.”

  “You could snag yourself another guy to hang out with,” Nic suggested. She laughed at Bethany’s rude hand gesture in response. “I know you’ve sworn off men. But I’m just saying. That would get the point across to BenBotheringYouLongEnough, without raising a caution flag with your bad-boy bros.”

  Bethany wasn’t so sure about that. Her parents and older foster siblings knew enough about her life in Atlanta to say a time or two or twenty that they were happy to see her settling down.

  She drained her pinot gri, her attention wandering to the one person in McC’s who seemed oblivious to her dilemma. Rick’s newest employee, working his first night behind the bar, had been attentive, efficient. But he’d yet to chat her and Nic and Clair up the way he had other patrons clustered around the horseshoe-shaped counter. Not that Bethany had noticed. Much. Except for wondering who he was and where he’d come from. And why what was clearly about to go down with Benjie should feel even more mortifying with this gorgeous stranger there to witness it.

  Bethany watched him bend over to pull so
mething from the minifridge beside the sink.

  Clair sipped her beer. She caught Bethany staring at the guy’s assets. “I’ve seen you look at a box of Dan’s strawberry cupcakes that way. Right before you inhaled a half dozen of them.”

  Bethany fluffed the spiked, purple-tinged bangs of her close-cropped auburn hair.

  “I don’t know why I let you two talk me into girls’ night,” she complained.

  Benjie had worked his way deeper into the crowd, stopping to talk to a table of Braves fans who were being polite. But they were clearly wanting to get back to the game they kept glancing around him to watch.

  “I mean,” Bethany said, “what were the chances he wouldn’t show up? I could have stayed put in Atlanta. Pitched in at the youth center after teaching my class.”

  “Or headed straight to Dru’s as soon as you hit Chandlerville?” Nic tsk-tsked with a shake of her head.

  “I need all the painting time I can get.” And her peaceful, makeshift studio at the house that her foster sister shared with her fiancé was Bethany’s haven.

  “You need a social life,” Clair corrected. “Pronto. Which doesn’t include volunteering teaching children how to be creative, pulling all-nighters in your painting cave, or covering odd shifts for your sister at the Dream Whip. All so you can steer clear of Mr. Wonderful over there.”

  Nic was keeping a closer eye on Bethany now than Benjie. “Not that he’s the only reason we’re seeing less and less of you by the day. Your family is ramped up to an extreme state of togetherness. Even for them. It was freaking you out long before this new thing of yours started up in the city.”

  Bethany smiled. The same way she did each time she remembered that beginning next month she’d be working a few days a week as an artist in residence at a Midtown Atlanta co-op.

  “Now you have an even better reason to ditch us,” Nic griped. “We practically had to drag you out tonight like—”

  “Some kind of friend-tervention?” Clair tugged at the mid-thigh hem of her dress. The thirty-something guy sitting on her other side nearly fell off his bar stool. “You need to lighten up, B, before you crack. Date a little. Have a good time. Stop letting your family get to you. Stop worrying about getting your heart stomped by another Mr. Wrong. Have a little fun with—”